The United States Presidents Who Owned Slaves

As I've mentioned in a few of my recent blog articles, I now enjoy an Internet service that allows me to rummage through old newspapers online...I've been focusing on October, 1956...the month of my birth...using the Miami News as my source.  Beginning September 27th of that year, they had a daily feature focusing on the American presidents, starting with George Washington and ending with the then-current one, Dwight D. Eisenhower just before the presidential election.  The insets...the above one is of Andrew Jackson...summarized each succeeding president and not only informed me of their respective lives and administrations, but also of the prevailing social and political climate of 1956.  For example, in none of the articles was it mentioned that a president owned slaves...yet with the first 18 presidents, 12...or two thirds...were indeed slave owners at one time or another, not to mention 10 of the first 12.  Here's the list of presidents who in at least one point of their lives owned slaves, as it appeared in Wikipedia:

GEORGE WASHINGTON

THOMAS JEFFERSON

JAMES MADISON

JAMES MONROE

ANDREW JACKSON

MARTIN VAN BUREN

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

JOHN TYLER

JAMES KNOX POLK

ZACHARY TAYLOR

ANDREW JOHNSON

ULYSSES S. GRANT  

Of the above, Jackson, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk were the most unapologetically pro-slavery.  Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, while hypocritically benefitting materially from their slaves, either allowed for their freedom following their own deaths or wrote and spoke in opposition to this onerous institution that violated every principle of freedom and justice that they proclaimed as Founding Fathers...and to his discredit Jefferson actually fathered children with one of his slaves.  Others had a more marginal connection with slave ownership, some supporting slavery's expansion into US territories and new states while others pushed restraint.  I'm not writing this to condemn these men...they lived in a different era when values that decent and reasonable people today abhor were more accepted in society.  But it does bear noting that in none of the 1956 articles I read did slave ownership among some presidents seem worth mentioning...and that does bother me a lot.  It also bothers me that "originalist" conservatives who are always trying to return to the Founding Fathers' thoughts when arguing their constitutional priorities gloss over their slaveholding while trying to depict the simple wearing of a mask for the public's safety in the midst of this dangerous pandemic as some kind of violation of their high and holy rights...oh, please...

Just Finished Reading Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

Before Suzanne Collins wrote her celebrated young adult science fiction series The Hunger Games, she produced a five-volume children's fantasy series titled The Underland Chronicles.  They feature young Gregor, a New York City boy who one day discovers a secret passageway to "Underland" through a hole in his family's basement laundry room.  This special hidden place under the Earth's surface is populated by humans and various human-sized, English-speaking animals like rats, bats, cockroaches and spiders...that aspect of it reminded me of Roald Dahl's 1961 children's novel  James and the Giant Peach while the underground secret world made me think of Neil Gaiman's 1996 adult book Neverwhere ...click on the titles' links to access my reviews of them.  I just finished reading the first book, Gregor the Overlander, from 2003.  Gregor, whose father mysteriously disappeared two years earlier, is stuck at home caring for his little baby sister Boots...the two accidentally fall through the hole and they're suddenly in the thick of all the ongoing drama, with a mysterious prophecy portending the unfolding of events.  I've always had a soft spot in my heart for stories with secret portals to other realities, but I wasn't too thrilled with talking roaches and rats...still, I get it: this is a children's series.  By far my favorite parts of the story were when Boots was featured, acting in such an endearing, spontaneous manner as a little baby full of wonder at the new world around her...and sometimes full of impetuous, selfish angry outbursts as well.  I'm planning on sweeping through this series in the next few weeks, spacing my readings between other books.  Collins wrote the installments quickly, to her credit: if you're a little kid and read the first book that came out, you don't need to be waiting three-to-five years for the next one: she finished writing the last book in 2007, a year before she began her Hunger Games project.  Yes, even at 64 years I'm a sucker for children's books and this series promises to be entertaining...

Quote of the Week...from Soren Kierkegaard

There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.                                                       Soren Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard was an 19th century Danish existential philosopher, essayist and Christian scholar.  I found his above quote in a posting on Facebook by local radio (WKTK) announcer Storm Roberts: its message couldn't be more applicable in today's world of alternative facts, bizarre conspiracy theories, habitually-leveled accusations of hoaxes and rigging, insulated information bubbles within social and broadcast media, out-of-context reporting, gaslighting, cancel culture, retroactive political correctness, historical revisionism, and foreign-inspired disinformation campaigns...to name a few of the ongoing trends.  In his quote Kierkegaard distinguishes between two types of being fooled.  I think both are commonly in play in our contemporary society that is loaded with the aforementioned avenues through which deception is routinely conveyed.  But I think the Danish academic left out another important way to be fooled.  Talk show hosts on radio and TV...as well as Facebook and Twitter advocates...regularly present their own political and social philosophies in terms of well-grounded, appealing principles while attacking their opponents personally or through sound bites and anecdotes...the aim is present those "other guys" as having no principles at all.  The solution as I see it is for any broadcaster who wants to be seen as fair to allow for principled discussion of the issues in our time with an implicit understanding that the participants to lay off the personal invective.  We actually did have such shows in the past like William F. Buckley's Firing Line and the Dick Cavett Show...where the quests, regardless of their viewpoints, were afforded the time...without repeated interruption as is usually the case nowadays...to lay out their visions and philosophies.  I suggest that if you ever find yourself listening to talk radio or TV to practice discerning what they're up to...I actually am quite open to listening to people defending their worldviews by espousing the principles behind their beliefs. It's them tearing into their perceived adversaries that leaves me cold...a major reason why I steadfastly avoid late night "comedy" talk shows on TV. If you're letting them be your major source of news then you're fooling yourself...

Just Finished Reading Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick

Martian Time-Slip is a 1964 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, the twelfth book I've read of his so far.  Its time setting is 30 years into the future, i.e. 26 years ago in 1994.  Mars has been explored and settled for several years and it seems humanity has transported its nationalism, prejudices, and mental illness straight over to the new world...which they have discovered is already inhabited by a human race called the Bleekmen: apparently both Earth and Mars were seeded with humanity around the same time by an outside source hundreds of thousands of years ago.  A repairman recovering from a schizophrenic episode on Earth has moved to the Red Planet with his family in order to find some mental peace from the masses of people crowding his planet of origin.  He finds himself drawn into a complex web of relationships between a bigoted wealthy businessman, that man's wife, his neighbors which include a trader in the thriving black market and his autistic son...and the psychiatrist treating the boy.  The narrative is presented from the various characters' perspectives, and this becomes pretty interesting when the autistic boy is featured...he suffers from the problem of dealing with a time that flows much more quickly for him than for the "normal" people around him.  Also, he is a precog, which is someone who can see into the future.  This piques the businessman's interest and he seeks to use the boy's talents for his own purposes.  Mars is presented as a bleak, unfriendly world where no one in their right mind should want to live...in this at least I thought the author probably got it right.  Dick, however, treated schizophrenia and autism in this story as two forms of the same thing and presented them as vehicles for enlightenment...from what I've read about him he, too, suffered some some kind of mental illness.  That he would have Mars already being colonized by 1994 isn't really surprising since transportation technology and exploration had been in a state of explosive growth during the span of the previous few decades...it's more far-fetched...and much more disappointing...to me that we're now in the year 2020 and haven't left low Earth orbit in 48 years!  Martian Time-Slip wasn't one of my favorite Philip K. Dick stories, but the idea of somehow becoming disengaged from the normal flow of time is an intriguing subject that he treated very well here...

Weekly Short Stories: 1965 Science Fiction, Part 3

Here are my reactions to four more short stories from 1965 appearing in the anthology World's Best Science Fiction: 1966, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr.  I found the below tales to be most interesting, especially the first one which blew me away.  I've been generally impressed with the editors' picks for the year's best...I just wished they'd synced the year on the anthology's title with the actual year the stories were released.  In any event, here are my reviews for this week...

TRAVELER'S REST by David I. Masson

One of the more intriguing science fiction stories I've read, this tale of a world on which the rate of passage of time varies by the distance to time waves radiating from a singularity high up in the mountains...where a vicious stalemate of a war for survival is ongoing against a ruthless enemy.  A soldier at the front is informed of his "retirement" and gets to live years of his life in peace while raising his family in the idyllic lower lands...while hardly any time at all passes high up on the front.  The conclusion to it all made me want to shout, "What, WHAT!!!"...

UNCOLLECTED WORKS by Lin Carter

An elderly literary critic is being interviewed, and he has a lot to say.  His most significant memory, though, is of a man not of letters but rather an inventor of a device that he claimed produced all the works of literature going back from the beginning of writing and up to the present...and then on into the future.  The critic knows that nothing can be proven, but what the inventor told him about the past discoveries of lost works has convinced him...after he initially rebuffs his outlandish claims.  This story has the ring of fatalism, whereby the future is predetermined and can be known in detail and far in advance with enough accurate data and the ability to process it.  Maybe the critic was convinced, but I'm not...still, an interesting premise for a story...

VANISHING POINT by Jonathan Brand

The Galactic Federation (yes, that's what they called it) has invited Earth's ambassador to meet its representative on a special world where the environment has been specially manufactured to mirror conditions on our home planet.  The diplomat, ship engineer and three other crew members meet a human there who speaks on behalf of the Federation and tries to make the guests feel at home.  But the engineer...who is later relating his experiences as a bedtime story for his two little daughters...begins to feel something amiss, especially during those times their host retreats off into the distance to pick some fruit.  The author's main point in this story was a bit difficult for me to visualize, but I got the general gist and thought it pretty inspired.  It all has to due with visual perspective and its effects on distant objects...

IN OUR BLOCK by R.A. Lafferty

This is a brief, funny tale about a run-down old street and the decrepit shanties lining it.  Two townsfolk, Art and Jim, can't figure out why the businesses there can do what they do with their limited space and material.  It's their own lackadaisical attitude about the strange goings on around them that's as quizzical as the unusual people they encounter. The obvious answer to the mystery completely escapes them as they are too stuck in their own comfortable thought patterns... 

Next week I conclude my look back at the year 1965 in short science fiction...

Constellation of the Month: Cassiopeia (the Queen)

Last month I was standing out in our backyard with Melissa one clear evening, pointing out the visible planets and some stars with their constellations.  She looked around and pointed to a close group of moderately bright stars in the northern sky, roughly shaped like an "M".  I answered that it was Cassiopeia, representing the queen and mother of Andromeda in the Greek mythical tale of Perseus...several constellations from this story dominate the autumn evening sky.  I picked Cassiopeia as my constellation of the month for November for that reason: its easy visibility, at least from northern hemisphere skies.  It's not that large as constellations go, but it represents the northern seasonal counterpart to Ursa Major's asterism the Big Dipper, which dominates in the springtime.  As a kid, I always learned to draw it as a sort of upside-down chair or throne including one of the fainter stars...my above pictured drawing reflects this.  Star maps usually "connect the dots" with it looking like a "W"...or "M" when it reaches its peak above Polaris, the North Star.  As you can see, the five M or W stars of the constellation are designated by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet, something that Atlantic tropical storm followers are probably well acquainted with after this record-setting hurricane season of 2020.  The additional star I connected is Kappa, and just a few degrees from it is located the remnants of one of the greatest observed supernova explosions in recorded history.  Officially known as SN 1572 for its year of occurrence, or Tycho Brahe's supernova after the famous astronomer of that time, it was around 8-9,000 light years distant but its peak brilliance reached a magnitude of -4, making it as bright as Venus back then, 448 years ago...the remnant is now only detectable through strong optical, x-ray and radio telescopes.  There are a couple of other constellations I could have picked out for November...let's see how long I can string out this monthly blog feature: I'd like to eventually cover all 88 of them...

My #6 All-Time Favorite Song: Firewood by Regina Spektor

FIREWOOD, by Regina Spektor, is my #6 all-time favorite song, but I wonder whether you've even heard of it.  It's from her 2012 album What We Saw from the Cheap Seats.  I have never heard it played on the radio, although it should have been a huge number one hit for several weeks. As a child Regina immigrated with her family in the 1980s to America from Soviet Russia and is a classically-trained pianist...that instrument dominates her recordings, including this masterpiece.  Firewood's lyrics seemed aimed at an ailing soul, in a hospital and thought to be dying...but what kind of affliction is it, mental or physical?  "Rise from your cold hospital bed, you're not dying...everyone knows you're going to live, so you might as well start trying".  This song has always been a treasure for me to listen to, but it's also been painful as it is the sort of song that can remind listeners of people they personally know in their own lives who have gone through really tough, tough times...possibly themselves.  It's yet another slow-moving song on my top ten list...and not the last Regina Spektor piece on it, either: another one ranks higher!  To me, Regina Spektor is far and away my favorite solo musical artist of this century and has seven studio albums so far...of course I own them all and am impatiently awaiting her next one.  The melody to Firewood is the kind of listening experience that a you might find yourself doing a double take on...there's something timeless to it, as if it had always been out there instead of only for the past eight years...

Trump's Presence to be Felt Beyond the Election and Biden's Inauguration

The rumor going around is that President Trump will be staging more mass public rallies in the next few weeks as he legally contests Joe Biden's close victory over him in the 2020 presidential election.  To me, not a Trump supporter...although I do support his stances on certain specific issues...this makes eminently good sense as he has always built up a great deal of popular support with these gatherings and obviously loves getting all the adoring, unquestioning attention in front of his many idolizers. And don't be mistaken, Donald J. Trump is indeed an IDOL to tens of millions of Americans, while I firmly acknowledge that many, many who voted for him do not share in their exaltation of this ordinary human being with his own peculiar, individual mix of faults and virtues. Of course these rallies, should they happen, would all be super-spreader events compounding the worst spike in COVID-19 we've yet experienced, but our current president seems unconcerned. I have a prediction: after he leaves office, Donald Trump will continue to hold these types of rallies, constantly insulting President Biden and his administration and running down his efforts as president while continuing his Tweetstorms full of conspiracy theories and false accusations.  Add to that continuing trips to the golf course and you have much of what he already was doing as president...albeit with his finger no longer on the nuclear button and no more authority to issue executive decrees, nominate officials and judges, sign or veto legislation...or hold up military aid to a besieged ally until it produces damaging material on his main political opponent.  But just because Trump will be out of the White House, don't expect any letup in the divisive rhetoric among our politicians: I'm confident that he wants to maintain tight control over the Republican Party and its elected officials in Washington, including the Senate...after all, a thumbs-down by him on anyone he perceives as personally disloyal can just as easily spell doom for their reelection chances as if he were still in office.  And looking at 2024, who knows, he may just want to jump back into it again...or even play the easier role of "kingmaker" by sitting in the background and picking his chosen GOP candidate.  Another possibility is that large segments of the population will simply deny that Trump is no longer president, just as they now deny climate change and the COVID pandemic...talk about alternate realities! Of course, all this is speculation...but if you think that voting Trump out of office equates to getting rid of him or that his conservative supporters for the past five years will now return in floods to their ideological principles and forsake this creepy, blind hero-worship, I don't think you're being very realistic.  I'm not writing this because I've returned to following politics closely but because I don't want anyone out there to be terribly surprised when what I've laid out becomes the new reality.  If you want to allow the media to manipulate you into feeling offense against the "bad guys" in the political world as they fight your "good guys", no matter which side you think "bad" or "good", then it's all on you...you don't have to listen to that crap and it just might behoove you to make an effort to see things for a change from the other guy's perspective.  For myself, I tune in to the half-hour CBS or ABC evening news and sometimes the local late-night news show at 11:  I'm letting the rest of it all ride, recognizing that much of the media...both social and broadcasting...has a vested interest in heightening division and passions among users, viewers and listeners: if you're into all that, then good luck with your outrage, now and in the future.  As was the case with this particular article, I'll state my political opinions from time to time while trying to space them apart more...

Four Astronauts Slated for Space Launch from Cape Canaveral Sunday Evening

Tomorrow evening (Sunday)  Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi (pictured from left to right)...the last from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency...are scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida in SpaceX's Crew Dragon craft, at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket as it represents the second manned flight launched from United States soil this year, after the earlier successful May 30th launch which returned August 2nd.  Like that mission, this one will transport the astronauts to the International Space Station...the plan is for them to stay there until their return to Earth in the spring.  The launch was delayed from October 31st due to engine issues within the Falcon 9 rocket, and then again from tonight's planned launch because of concerns that high winds would interfere with booster rocket recovery...tomorrow's launch time is set for 7:27 pm Eastern Time. I'm going to try to see it from my backyard here in northern Gainesville if the weather permits.  I am gratified that America is gearing back up again for space exploration with astronauts and look forward to future missions to the moon and Mars.  Hopefully, the incoming Biden administration won't mess with our space objectives and allow a continuity of missions that has been sorely lacking in the past whenever one president left office and another stepped in.  And what about that Space Force begun under Trump? We'll see...

The above picture of the four astronauts on this flight is a public domain release by NASA that appeared in the pertinent Wikipedia article...

Quote of the Week...from Alex Trebek

I think what makes 'Jeopardy!' special is that, among all the quiz and game shows out there, ours tends to encourage learning.                                               ---Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek, the host of the wonderful Jeopardy! game show since it was brought back in 1984, sadly died last Sunday of pancreatic cancer, a condition that he had shared with his faithful viewing audience long before...still, his passing doesn't make it any easier.  I had watched the original Jeopardy! series (1964-75) while growing up through childhood and my teen years...Art Fleming was its very capable host.  On both runs, Jeopardy! was structured the same, with three contestants playing two rounds with different subject categories in each of them and a final, single answer round: "answer", because this quiz show phrases its questions in the form of answers, to which the correct response is a question... I always had a problem with that.  Say the "answer" on the screen is "Its capital is Caracas".  The correct response is "What is Venezuela?", but if I walked up to someone and asked the same question, that answer wouldn't help me at all.  Still, it has been fun trying to beat the ultra-smart and knowledgeable contestants to the correct answer.  And even if the category at hand is on a subject with which I am totally unfamiliar, the clues sometimes will steer me to get the "question" right.  I don't watch Jeopardy! every day because of my schedule, but if college football permits I can view it Saturday evenings at 7:30 on my local Channel 4 station.  It has been clear to me that Jeopardy! was a labor of love for Alex Trebek, and my sympathies and wishes are for his family and friends.  As for his above quote, the wide gamut of topics discussed on the show demonstrate...as well or better than any encyclopedia can...interesting areas that people can involve themselves in, including science, technology, music, literature, history, geography, language, mathematics...it goes on and on.  I hope that this show will always stay true to its high standards and never sink into appealing to vulgarity as do shows like Family Feud and Match Game...

Eta Striking Through North Central Florida Today

I have an app on my phone called Wordscapes, which is a scrambled word game.  One of the three-letter word combinations is a-e-t, from which you can form tea, ate, eat...and the Greek letter eta (small η, capital Η).  And Eta, incidentally, is the name of the current tropical system (Greek letters being used for names after exhausting the traditional list) that had been situated in the eastern Gulf of Mexico...although its bands have been affecting us in north central Florida for the last five days with rain and gusty winds.  Because of a cold front descending from the northwest, Tuesday evening the hotshot weather forecasters changed their projection to having it hit today around Cedar Key and as a strong tropical storm and then make a beeline for my Gainesville area.  Tuesday night's forecast had Eta slowing down until possibly even Saturday after passing over us in northern Florida, but subsequent notifications have had it entering the Atlantic Thursday night. Also, they noted on The Weather Channel yesterday that it seems surrounding dry air has been entering the storm and weakening it...for a while early yesterday it was classified as a weak hurricane. I haven't been too thrilled with the weather we've been experiencing lately, but it could have been a lot worse: just ask the folks in south Florida and the Tampa area. Eta, which earlier had developed into a Class 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds and struck eastern Nicaragua before emerging into the Gulf out of Honduras, then wound its way...first eastward and then northward...through Cuba.  Then it brushed (and flooded) south Florida and swung back into the Gulf of Mexico...and here we are now, stuck with this Greek freak of a storm.  I hear there's another one, named Theta naturally, brewing out in the eastern Atlantic while a new area of tropical disturbance is in the Caribbean where Eta once began its twisted journey, following its original path toward Central America: let's all hope its trajectory is straighter than Eta's..

As I mentioned, it's currently 9 in the morning and Eta's center is slightly northwest of Gainesville as it heads toward Jacksonville at 13 mph.  The rain and winds at this time are nothing for concern, and I expect conditions to have improved before I set off for work in three hours...    

Weekly Short Stories: 1965 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here are my reactions to four more short stories from the year 1965 as they appeared in the retrospective anthology The World's Best Science Fiction: 1966, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr.  Within the sci-fi genre, these tales span a range of topics from time travel to interstellar war and espionage to a repressive dystopian future to the rules for respectful engagement with extraterrestrials.  I found each one significant in its own way...although I admit to being tired of time travel stories...

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS by Clifford Simak

In 1896 an elderly couple live on their remote farm as two children, seemingly from nowhere, come up the lane and introduce themselves.  It's the identity of the children and their mission to these kindly people that may determine the world's fate.  Another one of those frustrating (to me) time travel stories that tend to handcuff people living in the past to a set fate, as opposed to them being allowed to exert their own free will in determining the future.  Still, I always love reading the tender way that Simak treated his characters...

PLANET OF FORGETTING by James H. Schmitz

There's another one of those interstellar wars going on with this story as the protagonist is sent on a mission to recover and send home to Earth a secret file detailing the enemy's strengths, weakness, and intentions.  Along the way he finds himself wandering around in an amnesiac haze on an unknown world where strange beasts are around him...gradually he recovers his memory as the pursuers from the other side close in on him.  And then he solves the mystery of his memory loss.  Reminds me of the the Gregory Peck movies Spellbound and Mirage...

"REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN by Harlan Ellison

In a dystopian future when rigid punctuality is enforced with a shortened life span being the punishment, there is a free spirit, the "Harlequin", who deliberately goes about with his pranks designed to upset the extremely delicate and elaborate schedules that run the society.  The chief enforcer of the time rules, the "Ticktockman", is none too happy as he searches down his adversary.  I remember first reading this tale seated on a jet plane taking off down the runway...I think it was at Atlanta or Asheville in 2006...

THE DECISION MAKERS by Joseph Green

As humanity explores other star systems and settles their habitable planets in the future, there is a need for someone with the title of Practical Philosopher...having the ability to discern whether different new lifeforms encountered are intelligent.  If they are, the planet is to be left alone for them to develop for themselves without human interference.  On one planet, such an individual finds himself up against the established human economic interests there as he discovers that intelligence may transcend a certain indigenous otter-like animal's individual abilities.  I liked how this story presented a future in which humanity demonstrated respect for other life as they reached out into the cosmos while also acknowledging how economic expedience can cause some to compromise their values...

Next week: more about science fiction short stories from 1965...

Just Finished Reading Matilda by Roald Dahl

Ever since that Jeopardy! episode a few weeks ago that devoted an entire category to British children's books author Roald Dahl, I've been exploring his collected works, believing then that I was unfamiliar with anything he had done.  Sure, he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, from which the early 70s movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was made, and I'd heard of his James and the Giant Peach.  But I'd never seen a movie or read a book of his...until the other night when I got out my own DVD of the 1967 James Bond thriller You Only Live Twice and discovered that Dahl had written the screenplay!  Well, I felt it was time for me to read another of his books, so I picked his 1988 novel Matilda...I wasn't disappointed.  Once again we have a Dahl story in which a child...Matilda, of course...is the heroic protagonist and a mixture of adults, some of whom are sweet and compassionate and some of whom are beyond nasty in their meanness. Matilda is a four-year old girl, a genius who has taught herself to read as well as a great deal of math.  She befriends the local librarian, who has introduced her to great books in literature and has already read many.  But her negligent parents belittle her and refuse to recognize her talents...when she finally starts out in school she discovers friends, a compassionate teacher...and a thoroughly abusive principal.  What distinguishes Matilda in this tale is her spunk and refusal to take any abuse lying down...here is someone who knows how to even the score!  It was all very entertaining...sadly, Dahl passed away back in 1990.  To me, he and Neil Gaiman are my two top favorite British contemporary authors...I plan to read all of their works.  In 1996 the film version of Matilda came out, but I haven't seen it or nor do I plan to...I don't want my own visualizations of Dahl's story and characters to become supplanted by an altered version...

My #7 All-Time Favorite Song: Building a Mystery by Sarah McLachlan

Number 7 on my list of all-time favorite songs is BUILDING A MYSTERY by Sarah McLachlan.  A singles hit in 1997, I grew to love it while listening in early 1998 to my local Gainesville alternative rock station, then on 97.7, and which played the song in its regular rotation back then.  Besides McLachlan's extraordinarily beautiful singing, this slow-moving song speaks of a woman's love interest whose fanatical sense of independence and wonder entrances her as well...while she bluntly acknowledges his glaring faults.  And aren't we all in the end deeply flawed individuals with our own special stories to tell?  Aside from the universal wisdom embedded within the lyrics...with a little unnecessary profanity thrown in for good measure...I got deeply within the "mystery" angle to it as the singer's boyfriend explores the frontiers of reality and beyond.  Sarah's singing to him...but she's singing to each of us as well.  It's a great love song, but not of a blind, possessive love but rather a more discerning, mature kind in which both share in their mutual affection and attraction while respecting the sometimes stark differences between them.  Sarah McLachlan has a couple of other songs that I liked a lot: Sweet Surrender which, like Building a Mystery, is from her excellent 1997 album Surfacing, and Fallen, from her 2003 Afterglow album.  I probably should explore this wonderfully talented artist's collected works at some time in the near future...

Just Finished Reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel novel by Suzanne Collins, released earlier this year, to her wildly popular The Hunger Games series.  It focuses on the life of that series' chief antagonist, Panem president Coriolanus Snow, who duels with heroine Katniss Everdeen throughout the three novels.  I read these books earlier and was greatly impressed by Collins' writing...the adaptation to film with Jennifer Lawrence playing Katniss and Donald Sutherland as President Snow was excellent, perfectly cast and expertly directed.  So much so, it would seem, that while reading this prequel novel I was continually finding myself picturing Snow as a young Sutherland when he appeared as surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in the original 1970 M.A.S.H. movie.  As prequels go, one must have a special motivation to read them (or watch them, as was the case with the three Stars Wars prequel movies) since you pretty much know how they're going to end: with the beginning of the "first" book (or movie).  Having attached myself to the characters and Collins' writing style, it was easy for me to take the plunge...

Reading prequels is similar to rereading a novel in that you pretty much know how it's going to end and which characters will make it that far.  Also, certain themes prevalent in the series are more deeply examined in prequels, for example Snow's fascination with roses, the origin of the mockingjay, and how the Games began following the Rebellion. Following young Coriolanus Snow as he makes his life choices along the way, some demonstrating his courage and intelligence and others his ambition and treacherous self-centeredness, it's easy to see developing within him the later ruthless, cunning President Snow of the Hunger Games books and movies.  Still, I didn't like it nearly as much as the original three novels...if you're a completist and a big Hunger Games fan, you probably will enjoy it more than I did...for that matter, I never did go that much for any of the extra Harry Potter spinoffs, either...

Deliberately Avoided Election Results As Long As Possible

I related to Melissa a few days ago that I was going to see how long I could go without knowing the 2020 election results, be they the presidential race, the numerous US Senate races, or any of the other races or referenda.  Tuesday evening I was at work and I heard nobody speak of any results, and I carefully avoided the TV in the breakroom as well as my smartphone's newsfeed and social media.  After work at home, Melissa...who kept up with the results herself...made it easy for me to sidestep the news channels on TV and held off on discussing the election.  Wednesday morning I posted a link to that day's blog article on Facebook and Twitter using my desktop computer...I brought out a piece of cardboard to shield the screen from my eyes, avoiding the news-infected Microsoft Edge home screen and then anything that two social media sites might reveal.  Then I went on my local public library's website to put some items on hold.  I then embarked on my regular routines for the day as usual, first stopping at my nearby Dunkin' Donuts for an iced coffee...listening to loud classical music on my earphones to avoid anyone around talking about it...and then headed off to my afternoon/evening work shift.  There I was again careful to avoid that breakroom, which doubtless would have somebody on the television talking about the election. I knew that eventually I'd want to end my information "fast" if only because of Melissa, but I did string it out through most of Wednesday, with her bringing me up to date on the counting...everything was still up in the air, although I was confirmed in my prediction that the election would be a lot closer than the opinion polls indicated.  After that I tried to avoid the news but not like before...you can go nuts listening to that stuff nonstop.  And here we are today, five days later...I don't know about you, but I have absolutely no control on what's going on now with the election and where it will lead, so I'm instead going to attend myself to matters that I can actually affect...

I'd tried this kind of game before of delaying knowing what happened in a big news story, but always with major sporting events like the January, 1984 Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Raiders and Washington Redskins and the 2008 national championship college football game between Florida and Oklahoma.   I think what got me to do it this time were the repeated warnings from the media that it would possibly take days following the election before a winner for the presidential contest could be determined...so why should I get myself all flustered over this drawn-out drama?  After all, we've still got the same leaders until January, whether they won or lost.  I remember back in 2000, weeks after that year's election between George W. Bush and Al Gore brought on a protracted struggle and recount in Florida.  I was in the Checkers drive-thru on Archer Road and the attendant, a friend from church, interested in my take on Bush vs. Gore asked me through the window, "So who's the President?".  Without missing a beat I replied, "Why, Bill Clinton, of course!" Twenty years later, I feel I've given myself some peace of mind by escaping all the political hullabaloo, if only for a short period.  And I've got to get that Microsoft news feed off my computer's home screen...as a matter of fact, I'm thinking of permanently restricting my national news intake to the traditional early evening news on one of the alphabet networks... 

Quote of the Week...from Bob Newhart

The only way to survive is to have a sense of humor.                        Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart, the great television comedian known for his two popular sit-coms The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78) and Newhart (1982-90), is definitely a survivor...he's 91 and still pluggin' along.  However, if you put his name into a search engine you're bound to come up with death reports...he supposedly just died either on September 21st or October 30th, depending on the website.  From what I can tell, this is a hoax and the soft-spoken humorist is still alive and well...which brings me to the above quote.  I suppose you really are a survivor if you outlive your own death notices!  My favorite Bob Newhart Show episode...and there were many I liked as I regularly watched it back in the 70s on Saturday evenings following Mary Tyler Moore...was the Thanksgiving episode from 1975 in which Emily leaves on a trip and Bob is left spending the holiday with others, including his highly neurotic patient Carlin, in his apartment as the turkey gets burnt in the oven and Bob orders Chinese while everyone ends up getting inebriated.  One element of his series that I loved was how a simple joke or turn of phrase from early on would come back later on and get amplified and humorously twisted...this particular episode was a great example, with knock-knock jokes taken to their funniest.  Let's all hope that Mr. Newhart got a good laugh at his "demise" and will continue enjoying his life to the fullest.  By the way, there's something on the internet called WikiObits that produces makeshift obituaries of famous people even if they're still alive.  They did one for Newhart and I tested it out by doing a search on Beyoncé...their false obit of her stated that she died possibly of a fireworks accident.  This all illustrates something I've hit upon before: if you Google something, it will respond by providing you what it "thinks" you want, not necessarily what is true...

Some Interesting Newspaper Articles from October, 1956

Here are four articles that caught my attention as I was skimming through the archives of The Miami News, a mainline, established newspaper, covering the dates October 4th through 6th, 1956...64 years ago.  It's interesting to see how people saw the future back then, as well as being treated to many assumptions they made about the ways society should be structured.  With each article I first wrote the main point of interest to me, followed by my own commentary.  Yes, these were real articles...

ENSLAVEMENT OF MEN AS ROBOTS PREDICTED...JUST PLUG 'EM IN (10/4/56)

In the article: Curtiss R. Schafer, project engineer for the Norden-Ketay Corp., of Milford Conn., said research in the science of "biocontrol" has shown that the conversion of human beings into electronically-controlled robots is possible.

Yes, I believe Schafer's revelation that "whole nations might be enslaved by tiny radios implanted into the brains of infants to prevent them from thinking as individuals" is feasible: I saw, with my own eyes, the archvillain Plankton do this sort of thing in the first SpongeBob SquarePants movie!  But seriously, aren't a lot of people in our own day and age voluntarily allowing themselves to be enslaved by their own smartphones and social media? This was a United Press article...

RADICAL CARS STILL FAR IN FUTURE...STEERING LEVERS AND ATOMIC ENGINES COMING (10/4/56)

In the article: According to F. C. Reith, vice-president of the Ford Motor Co. and general manager of the Mercury division, "Gas turbine engines are 5 to 10 years away, while atom-powered cars are at least 15 to 20 years in the future."

Although gas turbine technology has been extensively used with other forms of transportation, it hasn't yet taken a strong hold with passenger cars...although lately research and development is going on concerning its use with hybrid electric cars.  As for atomic cars...ha, ha, ha...this shows the overly rosy assessment folks were giving this energy source at the time: after all, the first running nuclear reactor began operations just the previous year.  Mike Davis, Miami News staff, wrote the article...

DUMB GUYS HELD BETTER AS DRIVERS (10/5/56)

In the article: Quoting Arthur L. Berlin, chairman of the driver education program in San Leandro's (California) schools: "The man who drives while thinking of his business is a poor driver, while the man with low mental ability won't be thinking about much of anything."

This is the kind of silly article I would have expected from a rag like the National Enquirer, not a reputable, serious newspaper like the Miami News...yet it was released under the auspices of the Associated Press. The article's premise is asinine: just because someone's thought processes function at a "lower" level than another's doesn't mean that they can't be just as distracted by their own less-significant thoughts while driving...

STOP THE SHOUTS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS...A WOMAN'S VOICE (10/6/56)

In the article: From Dorothy Roe's syndicated women's advice column, agreeing with Florence Anderson, a Chicago mechanical design engineer: For instance, if you want a raise...don't start complaining about how you can't afford a new pair of nylons, have to go without lunches and haven't had your hair done in three weeks...Instead tell [the boss] how fortunate you are to have such a brilliant and understanding employer, who understands the necessity of keeping up appearances in the business world. Tell him how you'd hate to work for an old fogy who didn't appreciate the importance of such things as hairdos and nylons.  

From today's more enlightened vantage point about equal rights for women, this article seems overly patriarchal and patronizing.  But it was serious advice when it was written and would have been uncontroversial within the accepted norms of the time.  I expect to see more articles like this one from the old newspapers... 

Well, I guess it's time for me to go back to the archives for some more treasures...

Weekly Short Stories: 1965 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin reviewing science fiction short stories from the year 1965 as they appear in the anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1966, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr and presenting their selections from the previous year.  For me, still living in the Boulevard Heights subdivision of West Hollywood, Florida...which that year would be annexed into the city of Hollywood...1965 marked my transition from the third grade at Boulevard Heights Elementary School (two easy blocks from my home) to the fourth at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary, five miles away and requiring daily bus trips...this brought a group of unforgettable kids into my life like Martin, Mike, Jim and Greg.  In 1965 President Johnson would often interrupt regular TV prime time shows to give nationwide addresses, usually beginning with "My fellow Americans" in his thick Texan drawl while discussing various issues, among them his decision to escalate fighting in Vietnam, and I was totally into listening to the pop/rock music being played, via my trusty little transistor radio, on 560/WQAM "Tiger Radio".  My favorite TV show by far this year was The Man from U.N.C.L.E....I had each episode's title memorized.  Pet-wise, Tiger the cat reigned supreme at our home.  But enough of the memories, here are my reactions to the book's first four tales...

SUNJAMMER by Arthur C. Clarke

Imagine a yachting regatta with majestic boats out on the open sea racing for bragging rights and the prize purse...now picture it in space and the boats are ships with wide, ultra-thin metallic sails to capture the radiation emitted from the sun (aka solar wind) to power them onward and you have the premise for this thoughtful story about one such event.  Seven ships, each designed differently and from a different country, vie to be the first to pass the moon as they leave Earth's orbit. This story's a great lesson in science as Clarke teaches the reader a lot about what goes on inside the sun and how its radiation bursts can pose a threat to space travelers, as well as how physics would dictate the motions of such "sailing" ships in space...

CALLING DR. CLOCKWORK by Ron Goulart

This story is a brutal indictment of socialized medicine as society in the future is divided between private health and that provided for "free"...the Urban Free Hospitals are dilapidated, neglected and use run-down robots as physicians.  Arnold Vesper, his own medical care supposedly assured with private insurance, is visiting an ailing friend of his father's in one of those "hospitals" and gets himself inextricably sucked into the system.  It's all exaggerated satire that makes the author's point much too vividly, although I strongly believe that providing affordable health care to all is an integral part of what any civilized society should strive for...

BECALMED IN HELL by Larry Niven

Howard...this story's narrator...and Eric are the two crewman on a scientific mission with their spaceship deep into hot, poisonous Venus' atmosphere...the extremely dangerous conditions leave little room on their mission for technical problems, but of course one is detected...and the two have difficulty finding the source of the breakdown as time is running out on them.  Not only was the unique working relationship between the two intriguing to me, but this might be the earliest science fiction I've read about Venus that described our "sister" planet in realistic terms instead of as the commonly-depicted fantasy world with treacherous oceans and steamy jungles teeming with lots of scary creatures...

APARTNESS by Vernor Vinge

In Vinge's post-apocalyptic depiction of future Earth following a nuclear holocaust that virtually wiped out life in the Northern Hemisphere, it is left to the remaining southern nations to pick up the pieces and go on.  An Australian anthropologist is on an Argentine ship...Buenos Aires is now the great world power...as it explores a section off the Antarctic coastland in search of a lost floating island that the Argentine ruler's astrologers predict will bring great joy and wealth to the regime.  Knowing that this is all nonsense, the anthropologist has his own agenda, revealed with the discovery of a heretofore unknown settlement of humans on Antarctica.  What follows bears out the story's title and steers it into an ingeniously different direction: brilliant and ahead of its time...

Next week: more sci-fi short fiction from 1965 reviewed...

On This 2020 Presidential Election Day

So here we find ourselves again, four years later as Donald Trump goes into Election Day as an underdog against his Democratic opponent for president.  I'm inclined to agree with progressive activist Michael Moore that Trump voters are underreported in the public opinion polls, this year as they were four years ago, and that this election between him and Joe Biden will be closer than most polls currently indicate.  If that's so, then once again...for the sixth straight presidential election...it will all come down to the uninformed, pain-in-the-neck undecided voters who will...as they have since 2000...allow late-hour "news" stories and phony campaign ads to sway their votes in one direction or the other and decide our collective fate for the next four years.  My vote was cast weeks ago and I had wanted to steer mostly clear of the no-holds-barred political warfare going on in the media, but the sad truth is that no matter which channel I watched on TV I was barraged with those horrendously annoying and often patently cynical campaign ads.  Tonight and beyond they'll be tabulating and releasing the results: my sincere, deepest hope is that no matter which candidate you supported, you haven't invested so much emotionally into the campaign and the candidates that the results devastate you if they don't go your way.  For me, I have fulfilled my responsibility as an individual American citizen by informing myself and casting my single vote...on this runaway train where the most easily manipulated voters routinely end up electing our national leaders, I can only brace myself for what's to come, for better or for worse: I suggest you do likewise. Regardless who wins, I suspect it's gonna get "pretty ugly" out there for the next eleven weeks until Inauguration Day, 2021...I want no part of it...